SETI League Press Release
LITTLE FERRY, NJ.., May 23, 1995 -- The SETI League, Inc., non-profit leader in a scientific Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, has obtained the services of a full-time Executive Director. Dr. H. Paul Shuch, an electronics professor in the Pennsylvania State University system, today began a one-year leave of absence from his teaching duties, in order to help privatize a project formerly funded through NASA.
Shuch, the aerospace engineer credited with designing the world's first commercial home satellite TV receiver, seeks to implement a worldwide effort to listen for microwave signals being radiated by intelligent civilizations in space. He plans to recruit thousands of amateur radio operators and microwave experimenters who will be willing to convert surplus satellite TV antennas into radiotelescopes.
In the past 35 years, what is now known as SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) has emerged from the realm of science fiction into the scientific mainstream, Shuch notes. The first such attempt was conducted from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank WV in 1960. It listened to signals from only two nearby stars, for just a few weeks. By contrast, Shuch says, the proposed SETI League search will survey the entire sky, for perhaps twenty years, or "until we make contact." Electronics and computer technologies have advanced to the point where today's amateur equipment vastly exceeds the performance of the best Government facilities of a generation ago, Shuch observes.
SETI scientists seek to determine through microwave and optical measurements whether humankind is alone in the universe. Since Congress terminated NASA's SETI funding in 1993, The SETI League and other scientific groups have been attempting to privatize the research. Experimenters interested in participating in the search for intelligent alien life, or citizens wishing to help support it, should email to join_at_setileague_dot_org, check the SETI League Web site at http://www.setileague.org/, send a fax to +1 (201) 641-1771, or contact The SETI League, Inc. membership hotline at +1 (800) TAU-SETI. Be sure to provide us with a postal address to which we will mail further information. The SETI League, Inc. is a membership-supported, non-profit [501(c)(3)], educational and scientific corporation dedicated to the electromagnetic Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.
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